Pope Francis has made known his animosity towards capital punishment, going so far as to condemn it outright. Of course in doing so, he has directly contradicted centuries of Church teaching. These teachings include proclamations by various popes and the Council of Trent. Also read here,here,here,here, and a smattering of my previous posts dealing with this as the Maryland Catholic Conference repeatedly blundered on this topic.

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II betrayed his personal distaste for capital punishment, but he respected Sacred Tradition enough to acknowledge that it trumped his personal proclivities. In other words, he understood that as the Successor of Peter, his role was to safeguard and promulgate the Deposit of Faith in its entirety.

Today we heard from several sources that Pope Francis thinks the catechism should be updated to reject the death penalty. See here and here.

Ponder these considerations:

The pope is the guardian of Church teaching, not its judge. He cannot alter it to his personal liking.

The Teaching of the Church is immutable for it stems from God's word, which is as immutable as He is. To pretend that God's word can change is to insinuate that God is subject to change. That is impossible. Such notions strike at the very nature of God Himself - a supreme blasphemy.

"Heresy" is defined as by St Thomas Aquinas as being "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas". The morality of capital punishment has been promulgated by the Church for hundreds of years. It will not change. The attempt to change it is inherently heretical.

If God's teaching can be held to be subject to change in this matter of capital punishment, then all topics of doctrine and morality can be seen as subject to change. I believe this is the main goal of this latest papal move. This proposed change to declare capital punishment to be anathema is a trial balloon. If this "balloon" appears to be flying free, we'll see the heresies ensconced in Amoralis Lamentia being promulgated without nuance or apology within our Churches.

Thus far Pope Francis has opposed capital punishment as a matter of public opinion. For canon lawyers and moral theologians out there, if the pope does attempt to alter the catechism, will that constitute an act of material and formal heresy that might render his papacy invalid? I don't know, but it seems to me to be a reasonable question.

Strictly speaking one can,from an ethical/moral standpoint,make an argument against the death penalty.But something tells me that when you examine his positions on various subjects of significance his opposition to the death penalty would be far stronger than his opposition to,say,abortion...or pervert "marriage".

IOW I'm strongly inclined to believe that his opposition is politically based rather than based on morality.

If my hunch is correct it would be in keeping with his obvious Marxist sympathies.

God is the one that instituted ‘capital punishment’... some think they are smarter than the Creator. But God did say that He was going to Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:

You are absolutely right. However, the pope has the right to oppose the death penalty on practical grounds, not on theological or moral grounds.
He can say “The death penalty is allowed, but I think it should never be applied because I don’t trust any government to apply it fairly.”

9
posted on 10/12/2017 2:09:28 PM PDT
by I want the USA back
(*slam is a violent political movement that hides behind the illusion of religion.)

Scripture authorizes capital punishment. It does so to Noah and it does so for specific cases in the first 5 books of the Old Testament.

However, I don’t think it necessarily requires capital punishment. I think part of giving man dominion over the earth and authority to institute governments, includes letting man decide how to handle punishments.

It gets down to what’s the goal.

If the goal is to protect society, then both capital punishment and incarceration meet the goal.

If the goal is deterent to others, capital punishment is hard to beat.

If the goal is justice, I suppose one can argue that capital punishment is less than full justice. But it seems the difference is so small as to be moot. The incarcerated person is deprived of most of their freedom.
And whether they die now or in 40 years, the ultimate punishment when they face their creator is coming. In fact, allowing them to live incarcerated gives them more time to accept Jesus and find God’s grace. And based on the book of Jonah, that is something we should desire for them. And if we think they don’t deserve God’s grace, well, none of us do. And that was the attitude God rebuked Jonah for.

Incarceration for years isn’t free, and the cost should be considered as well.

And as far as the Pope, it depends on whether he’s expressing a personal distaste or whether he’s actually calling into question the accuracy and/or authority of the scriptures which authorizes capital punishment.

I am ambivalent on the death penalty. I completely accept that God has granted the right to execute criminals in order that government fulfills its responsibility to protect their citizens. Through most of history there was no practical way to keep violent criminals imprisoned for the rest of their lives, so the death penalty was a necessity for protecting the people.

Today we have resources and capability to keep a prisoner humanely for the rest of their natural life in a manner that prevents them from harming anyone. As a Christian I want to not kill an innocent by error and I want the guilty to have the maximum chance to repent so I think it is wiser to not use the death penalty when not necessary.

What makes me ambivalent is, although we have the capability, we seem to lack the will and people who are a known violent threat to society are allowed to cause harm again. As long as they are on death row they can’t get a parole hearing.

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